Raping the Girl Next Door

When Boys Will Be Boys...

...and the result much the same

The people in Falloojeh have been trying to get the women and children out of the town for the last 48 hours but all the roads out of the city are closed by the Americans and refugees are being shot at and bombed on a regular basis… we're watching the television and crying. The hospital is overflowing with victims… those who have lost arms and legs… those who have lost loved ones. There isn't enough medicine or bandages… what are the Americans doing? This is collective punishment … is this the solution to the chaos we're living in? Is this the 'hearts and minds' part of the campaign?

River

Like George W. Bush, John Kerry's a shadow man, a projection of the cumulative shards of others' intents. Hell, he even looks like a shadow. But he is America's chosen alternative to Bush, the loser and incompetent now being flogged out of the White House by a U.S. citizenry enraged at their own stupidity and George's inability to prosecute a simple war perpetuating an American dream given substance by digital images of... yes, Elisha Cuthbert, star of the recently released The Girl Next Door.

What a lousy screen name. Can the girl not get herself a decent manager...

There... I've e-mailed Elisha and will interview her tomorrow. I'll probably take the job too... Bob Dylan's work with Victoria's Secret is depressing. I've been informed by Marvin Wasserstein, head of marketing for Victoria's Secret, that the girls breasts are not airbrushed. Their contract with the world's largest purveyor of intimate wear stipulates they have their nipples removed for fear of corrupting the morals of young Americans. When not on set, they wear Janet Jackson nipple caps (would you believe it?).

It's all very distressing. The way things are going, Kerry will get the job.

I know I'd do a damned side more good volunteering for the American presidency but, damn it... while Bill Clinton has my sympathies, life is far too short, Victoria's Secret is out, and the world is still full of girls like Elisha. I have no time to play at politics or with others' lives. Which is what George has been doing these past few years. And now he's taking a whipping... Hounded out of every Iraqi city on the map, the whimpering coward is fighting for his miserable life.

Would that he could do so in circumstances similar to those enjoyed by the victims of his dumb ambition. No, not the American people...

The American and European news stations don't show the dying Iraqis… they don't show the women and children bandaged and bleeding - the mother looking for some sign of her son in the middle of a puddle of blood and dismembered arms and legs… they don't show you the hospitals overflowing with the dead and dying because they don't want to hurt American feelings… but people should see it. You should see the price of your war and occupation - it's unfair that the Americans are fighting a war thousands of kilometers from home. They get their dead in neat, tidy caskets draped with a flag and we have to gather and scrape our dead off of the floors and hope the American shrapnel and bullets left enough to make a definite identification… One year later, and Bush has achieved what he wanted - this day will go down in history and in the memory of all Iraqis as one of the bloodiest days ever...

River

Although you might suspect it, I've not been trolling the Web looking for pictures of blondes. After watching Kevin Costner's 13 Days on the idiot box a couple of days ago, I decided to spend some time reminiscing about the good old days, when girls were girls and men were men. In 1962, John F. Kennedy was president of the United States and Cuba was the girl next door. Costner's high-budget, selective retelling of a forgotten time in which the threat was both real and imminent fails to convey the tension generated by the Soviet Union positioning ICBMs on Cuban soil. History tells the tale far better and, through its archives, the Michigan State University's History and Politics Out Loud project gives it voice.

I've been listening to a time when politicians sought to avoid rather than provoke war; when they bludgeoned Pentagon hawks with the jackhammers of reason and conviction; when they did their job. Studying the details of the Cuban Missile Crisis would do most Americans the world of good. They have a patchy history when it comes to warfare. It is not something at which they excel. In fact, as Muqtadah al-Sadr has taught them this past week, they are and always were bloody hopeless at it.

Dragged at the last into two world wars, they were always Johnny Come Latelys, the genial saps with the heavy armour. Much as Hollywood would like us to believe the U.S. conquered Hitler, they cannot evade history's recognition of Britain and Russia's more weighty and telling contributions to Adolf's downfall. And much as Arnold Schwarzeneger, Chuck Norris, Jean-Claude van Damme and a host of kung-fu patriots would have us deny it, the United States security apparatus military has performed abysmally in every armed conflict it has instigated or contributed to since WWII.

But there were bright patches, and John F. Kennedy's evasion of a nuclear holocaust late in 1962 remains one of the Twentieth Century's great military achievements. Now, all we get is Twentieth Century Fox or, worse, FoxNews. Yup, it was after Kennedy's assassination that the Curtis Le Mays and Rumsfelds of the world took over. They gave us what we have today, the snivelling weasel from Crawford, Texas, the search for a new girl next door, and a docile populace exhibiting all the spine of a rubber chicken.

The people in Falloojeh have been trying to get the women and children out of the town for the last 48 hours but all the roads out of the city are closed by the Americans and refugees are being shot at and bombed on a regular basis… we're watching the television and crying. The hospital is overflowing with victims… those who have lost arms and legs… those who have lost loved ones. There isn't enough medicine or bandages… what are the Americans doing? This is collective punishment … is this the solution to the chaos we're living in? Is this the 'hearts and minds' part of the campaign?

River

Mind you, despite Americans having the national resolve of a bluebottle, I have a soft spot for them. They too appreciate the virtues of digital foxes like Elisha Cuthbert now being dished up by Hollywood. These girls of great and obvious virtue appeal to healthier appetites and sensibilities than does Cuba as perceived by the average redneck; offering us hope for the future. Sharing the tastes of more refined US-ians, how could I ever give up on them? For all their faults, dead presidents, war-mongering and naive hysteria they, like their former girl next door and its president, Fidel Castro, are real and can be dealt with.

After WWII's birthing of new cycle of global intercourse, every superpower was given a fresh start and Kennedy inherited Cuba. However, like most Americans, Kennedy had a voracious sexual appetite and proved incapable of accepting that there is and will always be only one girl next door. Once deflowered, she exists no more. Search for her as one might, she will never return. That's all there is to it. There is no going back and no new dream girl. Grow up, settle down, and get used to it.

Kennedy might have learnt a great deal from Cuba. Or from Elisha from that matter. Like history, she takes different roles for different times and people. I will spend some time with her over the next few days, exploring her potential to take on parts other than that of a former hooker. She is, like Cuba at the time of the Revolution, an archetypal whole-wheat blonde, and has her own story. What we see in The Girl Next Door is, well, what we see. What we see in 13 Days is, well, nothing more than what we see. I have spoken at length to Elisha about this and can assure you she is what we might call a 'good' girl. She tells me Cuba was much like her in 1962.

In 13 Days, Costner omits the sordid detail heaped on the U.S. side of the ideological divide. Kennedy was no hero. However, suffering his pains and perversions privately, he delayed the onset of an era of global rape. The short, odious story is that he ravished Cuba before dumping her. Subject to the scorn of an indefinite blockade to mark her conquest, she became the whore of fat-walleted congressmen on fishing trips, their eyes reflecting dreams of the good old days when Havana provided sex, drugs and dubious deals on every street corner.

Where are the useless Governing Council? Why isn't anyone condemning the killings in the south and in Falloojeh? Why aren't they sitting down that fool Bremer and telling him that this is wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong? If one of them were half a man or even half a human, they would threaten to resign their posts if there isn't an immediate ceasefire… the people are enraged. This latest situation proves that they aren't Iraqi - they aren't here for the welfare of the Iraqi people.

River

Like countries, Elisha takes on certain roles. Generally, these roles are set by the major studios and their markets and are foisted on her by the pickle brains running Hollywood. Should I now advise Elisha to play a thick-legged, potato-picking Ukrainian woman unaware that she can order Bob Dylan CDs and pleasing lingerie from Victoria's Secret, that will be her role. But we are dealing with movies here. The Elisha we see in The Girl Next Door will be the same person starring as Olga the peasant girl raped by the vodka-swilling prince on his way to the front.

Superpowers are no different. The archives tell us so. The longer, more correct story, and the one they narrate, tells us that Cuba played Olga to the U.S. prince in 1962 for, although Kennedy subdued the hawks, he did so to crush Castro, not save him. In Turning History on Its Head, at the George Washington University National Archive Site, Philip Brenner, explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis to his fourteen-year old daughter and the world, reminds us that, at the time of the crisis":

"...the United States was waging a war against Cuba that involved several assassination attempts against the Cuban leader, terrorist acts against Cuban civilians, and sabotage of Cuban factories. The endgame of this low intensity conflict envisioned a U.S. invasion."

Brenner points to Operation Mongoose, History and Politics Out Loud to Operation Ortsac:

"After weathering the failed Bay of Pigs invasion by CIA-backed Cuban exiles in 1961, Castro observed as U.S. armed forces staged a mock invasion of a Caribbean island in 1962. The purpose of the invasion was to overthrow a leader whose name, Ortsac, was Castro spelled backwards. Although Ortsac was a fictitious name, Castro "got the message" and soon became convinced that the U.S. was serious about invading Cuba."

In a related article, Annals of Blinksmanship, Thomas Blanton notes:

"Perhaps most striking is evidence of the Cubans' unrelenting fear, before and after the Bay of Pigs landing in 1961, that a U.S. invasion was imminent. The...resulting paranoia suggests that when Khrushchev claimed that the missiles were there to defend the Cuban Revolution, he was not just scoring a propaganda point."

It would serve us well to remember that American, Russian and Ukrainian girls all want to have fun. Elisha as Olga was raped by JFK and the miniscule Cuban Revolution, subject to the use of overwhelming force by the U.S., was denied oil and a market for its sugar. Russian adventurism in Cuba had a cause, namely U.S. adventurism. It was left to one man, Castro, to keep the Revolution alive in Cuba. That he has been able to sustain it these past four decades despite American aggression and interference, makes him the equal of Mandela.

Do Americans realise this? Of course not. They also tend to forget that the girl next door is always somebody else's little sister and if you fuck with her, well... Forever adolescents on drugs, they chase the impossible dream. Not for nothing did Michael Moore entitle his book, Stupid White Men.


The Girl Next Door...A Real and Imminent Threat

They say around 600 Iraqis were killed in Falloojeh - 120 children and 200 women... it's an atrocity and horribly sad. They have let one or two convoys in and the rest were sent back. The refugees from the area are flowing into Baghdad and it's horrible to see them. Women and children with tear-stained faces, mostly in black, carrying bundles of clothes and bottles of water. The mosques are gathering food and clothes for them... one of the storage areas for the refugee stuff was hit by an American tank today in A'adhamiya and the scene is chaotic... scattered food, medication, bandages, blankets, etc.

River

Somalia almost proved America's second Vietnam. Somalia showed that the Americans had learnt nothing from JFK and his many peccadilloes. Had they done so, they would never allowed Bill Clinton his Monica Lewinsky blowjobs in the Oval Office. But no, they looked the other way and Bill's sex-crazed eyes lit on Somalia. And so it came about that Bill almost had his pecker trimmed in Mogadishu. Eight-hundred thousand Rwandese would testify to his hasty withdrawal if they could. As would Mohamed Farah Aideed were he in a position to do so. As would all those Rangers not available for the filming of Black Hawk Down.

The Russians are as randy as the Yanks and are as loath to learn from the past. Two decades after the United States screwed Cuba, Moscow's little sister, the Soviets ventured into Afghanistan. Many refer to their failed attempt to seduce and later rape that ancient country as its Vietnam. It's not a bad analogy. Afghanistan under the Soviet whip saw the mujahideen enjoying Big Brother Washington's active and material help. Afghanistan was not, to its ayatollahs' collective relief, to be Russia's girl next door. In many ways, as was the case in Vietnam, it played Lorena to Moscow's John Bobbit, offering great pleasure but delivering terrible pain. For the Soviets, Afghanistan was a bitch.

Afghanistan, if she doesn't mind me saying it, is proving to be something of a bitch to the Americans as well but, having been bombed back to the Stone Age, she has not yet or is incapable of inflicting the ultimate indignity of Mr. Bobbit on the U.S. and its recalcitrant proxy forces. Having locked down the Afghans more tightly than the Taliban in a religious frenzy, they are too busy fighting each other to be seduced by Afghanistan's natural charms.

Perhaps I should explain something here. When it comes to gratuitous sex, most women are bitches. Trust me. I know these things. Being a good Catholic boy, a blogger, and a professional to boot, I offer my counsel freely. I have more respect for the United States than I do for Bob Dylan, Victoria's Secret and Elisha Cuthbert, all of whom will receive large bills for my not insubstantial services. A country sharing many of my attributes; the rugged, sensitive and caring Marlboro man (in fact, all the attributes lacking in the shadows occupying America's highest office), the United States would do well to heed my advice.

To George W. Bush, I will say this much. In as much as Vietnam came to visit Soviet forces in Afghanistan, it will return to haunt you in Iraq. Like all conflicts and genocidal wars you have perpetrated or in which you have played a major role since Cuba fell in 1962, Iraq is not your next girl next door. That was Cuba and you raped her. Iraq will be your Palestine, the Lorena to your John Bobbit. Trust me George, I am an expert in these matters.

So it goes. People are generally slow to realise that when a relationship has run its course, it's over. Where rape is involved, the consequences are far harsher. The Yanks are slower than most. Kevin Costner is slower than most Yanks. Today is a different movie altogether. Kennedy raped Cuba and, although the case was never brought to trial, his misdemeanour has not been forgotten or forgiven. If George W. Bush's increasingly likely successor, that cadaverous man of the shadows, John F. Kerry, turns out every bit as rotten and corrupt as he's shaping up to be, we will likely see him chasing my charge, Elisha Cuthbert, with as much vigour as his predecessor and before him, JFK.

The retread version of the man who tamed his hawks will enjoy as much success with Elisha as the Soviets enjoyed in Afghanistan.

All I can think is, "We've become one of those countries..." You know - the ones where hostages are taken on a daily basis and governments warn their civilians of visiting or entering the country. It's especially sad because even during those long years during the blockade and in between wars and bombings, there were never any attacks on foreigners. Iraqis are hospitable, friendly people who always used to treat foreigners with care... now, everyone is treated like a potential enemy.

River - Not Your Average Girl Next Door

From the comment box:

HaloScan permits only 1,000 character responses to comments. Shelley asks some pointed questions and deserves a full reply. She comments:

What do you want, Mike?

You don't want Bush. You don't Kerry. You don't like Americans, because we fuck up constantly.

Do you want us to just detonate all of out atomic bombs over our own country and wipe us off the face of the world? Will that then end all evil, since we are the root of?

To which I offer the following response:

To your first and key question, an end to this carnage, Shelley; no different from you. I distrust Bush and I distrust Kerry. Big time. Bush is a criminal. Kerry has supported his every move. There are many reasons for me distrusting them, most of which you know and most of which are archived here. Were Kerry to make an unequivocal commitment to withdraw from the Middle East and bring the international community in to negotiate, enforce, and monitor its withdrawal (it has no credibility left), I'd support him as I would participating Middle Eastern states. Until he does that, I'd rather see Bush retain office until he is tried as a war criminal and international sanctions imposed on the U.S.

Bush's administration must be forced out. Until a U.S. administration is in place that does implement these steps, I cannot but wish to see the incumbents ousted. If I were to settle for less, I'd probably settle for anything and, finally, accept this ongoing butchery. There's enough of it elsewhere. Look at Sudan.

As for not liking Americans and your last two questions, you're angry and I excuse you that. It's patent bullshit and you know it. That's the sort of simplistic crap that equates criticism of Sharon and his supporters to anti-Semitism and I don't believe you believe it. I do not dislike Americans or the people of any other nation, creed, or race. Nor do I believe Americans fuck up more than some. When the U.S. does, however, it does so with devastating consequences for people living elsewhere. Yes, generalisations are bound to abound, but the U.S. invasion force is out of control and that is a big deal. We knew it would get to this.

Until U.S. citizens start telling the U.S. administration what they think of it, the world and I can only believe they condone what is happening in Iraq and elsewhere. There is, after all, a pattern here. Many U.S. bloggers do speak out against these illegal, murderous actions. You are one of them. And many U.S. citizens remember having to meet state intransigence with blunt force to effect a withdrawal from Vietnam. What's wrong this time round?

Is what is going on in Iraq cool? Seventy occupation troops, 700 Iraqi resistance fighters, and an unknown number of civilians killed in the past week... Do we, as peole sharing the planet, accept it and hope these fools will do better over the next seven days? A third battalion has already been brought into the attack on Fallujah. Iraq on fire? After a year? For what? Fuck no, I don't accept it. Nor do I think do you.

In short, your anger's aimed the wrong way. And no, there's no end to the evil we do. You know that too.